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i am not getting what this phrase means.
secondly is this an advantage of linux that here everything is file and how does this differ from windows
thanks

What that means is that Linux treats hardware devices as files and Windows doesn't. Every device has a file corresponding to it (you'll find them in the /dev directory) and a program can open this file and read from or write to it just like with any other file. Each time that happens, the kernel intervenes and writes to/reads from the hardware, then passes back the result to the program. Which is a huge advantage if you are writing programs because you don't need to know how to actually access the hardware.

That why, in linux, you can format a partition, but you can also format a file and mount it as it was a hard disk, because ultimately, linux makes very little -if any- distinctions. The real nature of the device doesn't really matter. That's one of the wonderful things in linux, you really don't have to worry about the nature of the things, so you can concentrate on getting the job done.

thanks hazel and i92guboj for ur worthy replies they are very usefull.
i have learned that whether it is process or it is hardware they are all treated as file in linux.
another question is that does this feature(that in linux everything is a file) of Linux was the reason that linux has no VIRUS.

thanks hazel and i92guboj for ur worthy replies they are very usefull.
i have learned that whether it is process or it is hardware they are all treated as file in linux.
another question is that does this feature(that in linux everything is a file) of Linux was the reason that linux has no VIRUS.

That's inaccurate. There are viruses for every OS under the sun, though admittedly, the panacea for them is Windows. The whole point of unix and it's clones (linux amongst them) is that the user doesn't have god-like powers. In other words: you can only write in your home dir. So, if you get a virus on your mail box and accidentaly run it (it has to be executable on linux, which is another barrier) at most, it can compromise the data in your home dir, but nothing else. This is why I advise to run wine as a separate user, by the way.

Note also that 99% of the windows virus come the same way: via a vulnerability in IE (don't you love activeX? :P ). Since we don't use dumb things like activex on linux, that's another wall. Denying exec permissions to javascript globally also help. Smart users only enable it on trusted sites. Anyway, most viruses are just product of script kiddies which use windows exclusive stuff like activex or vbscript and the like, so, even if we enable some malicious javascript on linux by accident, most times there will be no negative effect.

Of course, that's just plainly circumstantial. I mean: there's nothing stopping the people from programming more linux viruses (even if it's just to foobar your home dir only). The only limiting factors there are the quality of the clients (browsers, MTA's etc) and the ignorance of those script kiddies who make silly viruses for windows and IE.

Originally Posted by dxqcanada

That statement should be corrected:

In Unix/Linux/BSD, there are only files or process's

As I already mentioned above, processes are seen as files too under /proc/<pid_number>. So, they are files as well in a sense.

most of viruses are written for Windows and windows EXEs do not run on LINUX thats why Linux cant be infected with viruses!!!
i have tried alot to install a multimedia on Ubuntu but i failed,it is very difficut to install softwares on linux as conmaped to "NEXT-------NEXT --- FINISH"(i am refering to windows)